Eagles players toe company line on Jackson

Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson is seen during a game against the Redskins last season. Jackson’s teammates repeated coach Chip Kelly’s earlier sentiments that nobody on the team is irreplaceable. (AP Photo/Michael Perez)

PHILADELPHIA — The way Chip Kelly seems to have drawn it up, the system, not specific players, power the Eagles’ bus.

DeSean Jackson may be learning the hard way.

While a handful of Jackson’s teammates expressed hope the game-breaking wide receiver would remain with the team, what were they going to say Thursday night before Todd Herremans’ Second Annual Hoops 4 Health fundraiser producing money for local charities?

Moreover none of the Eagles surveyed suggested in any way it would be tough to win without Jackson and his elite skills.

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Jackson, who the Eagles have shopped around the league, didn’t participate in the event and has been seen on social media, but not heard throughout the mini-crisis.

“I don’t think there’s one person that’s irreplaceable,” Herremans said, echoing Kelly as well as some of his teammates. “I’d like to think that I’m irreplaceable but I know that’s not a fact. The fact is, I think what they’re trying to do here is create a system where you don’t have to rely on just the players and who they are. You can plug guys into the system and have success from there for many years to come.

“I think for people to actually get that we’d have to lose one of those special players and then still have success. I don’t think people would really understand that until it happens.”

Kelly himself said the Eagles’ offense isn’t “predicated” on one person. Even, it appears, if that person is Jackson, coming off a career season.

“I think he just meant that the offense isn’t built around one person,” wide receiver Jeremy Maclin said. “And I think if the offense is ever built around one person it’s the quarterback. You’ve just got to have faith in the organization and whatever direction they decide to go in.”

Maclin isn’t at all surprised a player with the skills of Jackson and in the prime of his career could be sent packing.

Maclin reminded reporters the Eagles got rid of Terrell Owens the year after he led them to the Super Bowl.

“Anything is possible in this league,” Maclin said. “I think the organization is going to do what’s best for the organization. Everybody knows that DeSean is a phenomenal talent. But at the end of the day that’s not the decision that players get to make. That’s a decision the staff gets to make. And I think whatever they decide to do with any decision, that’s what you’ve got to believe and that’s what you’ve got to have faith in.”

Maclin, by the way, said Jackson hasn’t reached out to him during the trade crisis.

Wide receiver Riley Cooper, who declined to test free agency and signed a new contract with the Eagles, distanced himself from Jackson.

Cooper said his decision to remain with the Eagles had nothing to do with Jackson.

“We’ve got the same agent but I never even thought about that stuff,” said Cooper, who signed a five-year $25 million pact. “It never was brought up. I just wanted to be here and be a part of the organization. He’s a great player and he’s a good friend of mine. So I want him to stay. We’ll see.

“In any case, whatever happens to DeSean, it’s supposed to happen.”

It may be a while before the Eagles reveal exactly what they have in mind for Jackson. Or for guard Evan Mathis, who also is being shopped. Herremans is close to Mathis and expects him to remain with the club.

Defensive end Trent Cole, who entered the league the same year as Herremans, had some interesting things to say about the locker room culture after calling Jackson a great guy.

“He’s one of my brothers,” Cole said. “He had some things in the past everybody keeps drawing on and this and that but from my standpoint as a teammate and as a brother to him I think he’s a good guy.

While answering a question unrelated to Jackson, Cole raised some of issues that supposedly have made Jackson a diva around One NovaCare Way.

“I come every day to work,” the 31-yeear-old Cole said. “I come in and do my work. I talk very little and go home. I love to play the game of football and that’s what I do. I don’t get caught up in what goes on in Twitter, Facebook and all that stuff. I come here and do my job and leave. And that’s why I’ve been here so long with the Eagles. I just want to make that point to y’all. I kept my mouth shut, I came to work, I did my job and I went home.”

It hardly seemed like a coincidence.

Then again, the Eagles traditionally go through offseason unrest.

“There’s always been issues like this in the past with Andy (Reid) or with (Tom) Heckert or with Joe Banner or anybody that was here,” Herremans said. “I think that everybody just wants to dissect it a little bit more and maybe make it a bigger deal because it is Chip’s first full offseason.”